GABAL | aka The WigWon Shin-yeon, South Korea 2005
8.0
forget about the crappy english title (and its alternate is Scary Hair:). forget the premise of a possessed wig. director Won Shin-yeon creates a great little atmospheric tale of two sisters coping with one's deteriorating health due to cancer. the film focuses more on the sisters' emotional relationship than on following the j-horror genre, and is all the richer for it. disturbing imagery does rock you, though, and superbly so, just enough to keep you on your toes. a laughable premise handled with so much grace that you never once question the story (okay, the title card's cgi is awful) and kudos to the filmmakers for foregoing cheesy cgi effects, thus keeping things rather creepy. same goes for the acting, there's nothing overly-dramatic about it, especially from Chae Min-seo as Su-Hyeon, the sister afflicted with the cancer, who is at times scary but mostly makes us sympathize with her because of the very real effects of her sickness. some have commented on the ending, how it wants to tie up all the loose ends. sure it does. but it didn't bother me as much as it did others. this is a nice little film, made even more impressive because it's the feature film debut from it's (young?) director. masterfully done.
Posted by Anonymous | 11:01 AM
